The present invention relates to protective vision devices, and particularly relates to devices which protect from potentially obstructive material such as spray paints and coatings.
There exists many industrial applications in which materials are deposited on to surfaces with spray techniques, one common example of which is spray painting. Because such spraying, and particularly spray painting techniques, often tend to fill their immediate surroundings and environment with the material being sprayed, appropriate precautions must be made to safe guard the health and safety of individual workers present the environment.
One immediate concern is the protection of a worker's eyes, particularly since many materials which are not otherwise hazardous to skin, or for which ordinary clothing provides appropriate protection, are much more hazardous to eyesight, with the potential to cause either temporary or permanent harm. A typical solution providing eye protection is some sort of eye wear, usually in the form of glasses or goggles. Where the only requirement for the glasses or goggles is to serve as a barrier to physical entry into the eye of non-toxic materials, such glasses or goggles may be somewhat satisfactory. Nevertheless, even in non-toxic painting environments goggles or glasses have one particular disadvantage: at some point paint will almost certainly coat the vision portion of the glasses or goggles to the extent that they must be cleaned--either in water or more hazardous solvents--or simply discarded.
Accrodingly, for a worker to stop painting every few moments to clean away accumulated paint is time-consuming and distracting. Oftentimes paint dries too quickly for the lens to be cleaned in any fashion whatsoever without some sort of solvent. Solvents in turn can create adverse effects on the lens and obscure the visibility making them useless. Typically, such goggles tend to be inconvenient to use and are often neglected by workers in spite of laws and regulations which require such protection.
A number of attempts have been made to address the problem of clearing the field of vision of a pair of glasses or goggles when they become dirty from particular materials. One type of device provides a plurality of superimposed layers of disposable transparent material which can be successively removed as each becomes soiled. In these devices, however, only a few layers of transparent material can be superimposed, typically about five, without distorting the field of vision. This usually represents too few cleaning surfaces from a practical standpoint because some tasks, for example painting a ceiling, will require 30 or more clean changes of the field of vision. In practice, sprayed paint also tends to accumulate between the layers, aggravating the problem rather than addressing it. Other devices take the form of some sort of supply and take-up system of transparent film which extends across a wearer's field of vision to renew a clean surface as the film is advanced. These devices have generally proved unsatisfactory, however, because of the cumbersome nature of changing an exhausted supply of film.
Furthermore, as paint or other materials build up within the supply and take-up or other advancement systems, such as systems become inoperative, rendering the devices no more useful than simple goggles or safety glasses.
Additionally, workers typically wear gloves when toxic materials are in use. Accordingly, the task of renewing the transparent film in such devices, or replacing the entire supply, becomes extremely difficult and cumbersome for the user.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a vision protecting device made of card stock paper and which is relatively inexpensive so that the entire unit is disposable once the roll of transparent film has been exhausted.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a vision protecting device which includes an advancement mechanism which conveniently advances a renewable lens surface across the field of vision of a wearer.